Geeky Ramblings

It really sucks to be suck … especially on a holiday.

Yesterday I stayed home from work because I wasn’t feeling good. At one point during the day I had a fever of 100.1.

Today I’m feeling better, but not 100%.

Originally, Ginny and I were planning on going to my folks house for the 4th of July, but I don’t want to risk getting anyone else sick.

So today I’m just going to relax and take it easy. Maybe try to get together with my folks on Sunday.

For those of you who live and/or work in the northwest suburbs of Chicago, you probably have noticed how bad Higgins Road is between Golf and Route 53. The potholes are absolutely horrendous.

The potholes were created after this last winter … and there doesn’t appear to have been any effort to repair them yet.

I contacted someone at the village of Schaumburg, and was told me that Higgins Road is owned and maintained by the Illinois Department of Transportation, Division of Highways.

I agree with your assessment of Higgins Road and can assure you that we have previously contacted them many times regarding this issue. I think that it will help for them to hear from as many people as possible, to get this road repaired.

My car has been in the shop at least twice now for suspension and alignment issues (recently getting a new set of tires) … I’m fairly confident that the condition of Higgins Road either caused, or contributed, to the damage.

I encourage everyone to contact IDOT and ask them to get the potholes repaired as soon as possible.

I sent email to my state senator, Michael Noland, and representative, Fred Crespo, asking that they look into the mater. No response yet. I was quite surprised when I found that the state does not seem to provide email services for state senators and representatives.

We bit the bullet … we got iPhones.  Our Verizon cell phone contract has been up for quite a while and they’ve been bugging us to re-up for a new two year contract … but I haven’t been super happy with the service and phones, so we started thinking about what other provider and phone’s would be a suitable substitute.

My co-worker Jerome has the iPhone and is very happy to show it off.  Even on the first release I have to admit, it was pretty cool.  The interface was nice, the features were nice, and the sound quality wasn’t bad at all.

The only things I really didn’t like at the get go was the fact that you were tied to AT&T and the battery wasn’t replaceable.

After mulling our alternatives, we decided to go for it.  Both Ginny and I got the 8gb  model.  We were originally thinking about the 16gb model, but the Apple store didn’t have any in stock and we figured, since we only used a fraction of our 4gb iPods, it wasn’t that big a deal.

A few observations …

1. It doesn’t like the fact that I use self signed certs on my mail server.  I’ll probably have to bite the bullet and get a proper cert.
2. I haven’t found any ability to select which folders I show in my IMAP mail account.  Wish I could, as I really only care about a handful on an ongoing basis.
3. One feature that’s missing, and was almost a deal breaker, was the lack of voice command dialing.  On my old moto phone I could just tell it “Call James Rich Mobile” and it would call James Rich’s cell phone (in my address book).  Nice for talking while driving.
4. As one would expect from an Apple product, the user interface is slick.  The screen is a bit over sensitive though.  I suspect it’s just something to get used to.
5. The pseudo GPS functionality is very cool … I really want to figure out how they do it, because it was able to figure out where was I better than my GPS can.
6. Porting of both the phone numbers on my Verizon account was smooth and fast.  It only took 30 minutes to complete.  I’m going to verify that Verizon cancels my account just in case.

One annoyance, unrelated to the iPhone itself, was the fact that it seems kind of hard to find accessories at stores that don’t actually sell the iPhone.  Woodfield mall, and the Apple store, were both very crowded … and both Ginny and I were in a hurry to escape (yeah, so we could play with the new toys) … so we skipped getting protective skins for the new phones.  We stopped at Best Buy on the way home, but they only had 2 or 3 skins & cases for the iPhone.  I’ll probably stop at Frys on my way home tomorrow to pick something up.

I’m kind of interested to see what the SDK is all about … I’ve got some ideas for apps that could be  fun.

Well, it looks like Riley does a bit more than shed, chew on cords, and season the furniture … I found this on the web (via slashdot):

The finding, from a 10-year study of more than 4,300 Americans, suggests that the stress relief pets provide humans is heart-healthy.

- US News & World Report : Cats Help Shield Owners From Heart Attack
‘course I knew he made me feel calmer… and I think I found a site that referenced a study that showed cats helped lower blood pressure.

Space.com has a very poignant article about the three major space disasters that happened to occur around the month of January.

• January 27th, 1967, routine ground test of the Apollo capsule.
• January 28th, 1986, launch of Space Shuttle Challenger.
• February 1st, 2003, the space shuttle Columbia broke apart upon re-entry.

The event that sticks in my mind was the Challenger accident … I remember I was at work, at Triad Software, and we had been ribbing a co-worker because her husband had bought her a portable TV for Christmas … we all thought it was silly, but when the event happened … we were all glued to Gwen’s TV with it’s little 2″ screen.

For someone who’s interest in science and technology germinated with the Apollo program, took root with the Skylab program, and started to blossom with the space shuttle program, the Challenger and Columbia events were quite devastating.

I remember my dad letting me stay up late to watch the Apollo 11 moon landing. It made quite an impression on me.

Later, on a family vacation to California, my dad was able to finagle a tour of Rockwell International, which was one of the prime contractors for the Apollo and Space Shuttle programs (my dad worked for a company that provided welding equipment to Rockwell). I saw the tail section the Enterprise as it was being built … but the biggest thrill of that trip was being able to stick my head INSIDE the command module of Apollo 8.

I’m really glad that the US is continuing it’s space program … I just hope there’s enough dedication, curiosity, inspiration, and of course, funding, to keep it going long term. I long for us to put another group of people on the moon.

The Grey Ghost was slightly overdue for it’s 40K mile scheduled maintenance. So I took advantage of the downtime at work (yes, it’s Saturday … but I’m on a high profile, under-resourced, project with a tight deadline.  I’ll be in tomorrow) to take my car in to the Food dealership and get the work done.

All that had to be done was an oil & filter change and tire rotation… so I had an hour to kill.

Obviously I took my laptop so I could kill the time (mostly playing solitaire, but checking some email using my phone’s network access).

There was another guy with a very similar Dell Latitude laptop … I casually asked him if there was any WiFi access. He indicated that he didn’t know … but he couldn’t use it anyways, because his wireless card wasn’t working.

I indicated that I was pretty handy with computers (especially the Dell Latitudes, since it was a similar model to mine) and offered to take a look. Turns out someone had disabled the wireless card in the device manager. I enabled the device and verified it was working by plugging in my portable access point just to see if the card could find a signal. I also showed him how to use the ‘WiFi Catcher‘ switch (when you push the switch, the a light will indicate if there is a Wireless signal in the area, without even having to turn on the computer).

Sadly, there was no WiFi access in the waiting area. I’m going to send an email to the Ford dealership to suggest they provide it. Sure would make waiting for your car a lot less boring.

I went to the hospital yesterday.

In retrospect, it was probably a silly thing to do … but at the time, it seemed to be the right thing to do.

The day before yesterday, while I was at work, my foot started hurting … a lot. And I mean it REALLY hurt. So much so that I had a hard time walking.

I thought that I had twisted something … but it was really just my right big toe that hurt. I couldn’t remember banging my foot against anything.  I also thought it might have had something to do with the shoes I was wearing.  The shoes are a little big for me, so I usually wear thick socks with them.  But that day the only socks I had were kind of worn in the toe area.

When I got home on Tuesday, I took a couple of Aleve (which is the best pain killer I know) … this dulled the pain a bit, but it didn’t go away. The pain was there all night … and kept me up a fair bit.

Around 5 am I woke up with my foot throbbing. I was starting to get really worried. I took another couple of Aleve, which helped the pain, and decided that I should get my foot checked out. Obviously I wasn’t going into work that day.

So around 10:30 I got in the car to go to Northwest Community Hospital … which a pretty big challenge … because the first time I had to apply the brakes I got a sharp pain in my foot. If there had been anyone in front of me, I probably would have rear-ended them.

I got to the hospital and hobbled into the emergency room. Explained the situation and they got me setup to see a doctor.

After waiting a bit of time the doctor looked at my foot … and decided x-rays were probably needed. I got the x-rays done, and waited a bit more time. The doctor came back and informed me that there was nothing structurally wrong with my foot (nothing broken) and no signs of gout or a sprain. I had probably just bruised the foot.

Anyways, the doctor sent me home with instructions to keep taking the Aleve for the pain … and if it didn’t clear within 5 days up I should contact my primary physician.

So I go home, take another Aleve, and settle down to just sit with my foot elevated.

Well the pain started to taper down close to dinner … and by this morning, it was fairly tolerable … although I was still hobbling.

By the end of the work day the pain was almost completely gone.

Yesterday I was convinced that I had broken something … now, it’s almost completely fine.

Weird, huh?

We had a very interesting weekend … did some fun stuff … saw some thing interesting, and encountered a new situation.

First, the fun stuff … we went to the Darwin exhibit at the Field Museum with my parents. It was quite interesting and informative. It covered both his Theory of Evolution, his personal life, and some discussion of Evolution in general. Did you know that he almost didn’t go on the Beagle voyage? He had asked his father for permission, but it was denied. After some huranging, he got is father to agree that … if Charles could get a reasonable person (in his father’s opinion, of course) to present good reasons for him to go on the voyage, he would allow it. Charles worked with his uncle, who his father apparently thought was reasonable, to put together a point by point rebuttal for all Mr. Darwin’s arguments against going.

After the museum, we decided to go for dinner … we didn’t want to go for Greek food, as that’s what we have a habit of doing. We also didn’t want Chinese, because Ginny and I just had Chinese food.

We decided on Italian … and found a place about two miles west of the loop for dinner. As we were driving there, I spotted a yellow cab that was a Ford Escape Hybrid. Considering how taxis drive, a hybrid vehicle makes a lot of sense. It was a 2008 model, which I’m not a big fan of … but it’s better than anything else. That was the interesting bit.

On to the weird … we got to the restaurant, had to wait a bit of time for a friend to join us, ordered and ate. The food was good. We were ready to leave, asked for the check, and I tried to give the waitress my AMEX card. She waved me off saying that they didn’t take that. So I asked her if Discover was OK. She clarified by saying that they didn’t take ANY credit cards. I only had $20 cash in my wallet. Luckily dad had some cash.

I was kind of shocked … I had never encountered a main-stream restaurant that didn’t take credit cards. I wonder what they do if someone shows up, orders, eats, but doesn’t have enough cash?

I gotta hand it to the Illinois Department of Revenue … they got the online tax filing system right.

The system to file your taxes online is simple, straight forward, and fast. Although I did use TurboTax to calculate the taxes, I entered the information directly into the states web site and was done in about 10 minutes. At the end I was able to download and/or print a PDF of my completed tax form with the confirmation number noted at the bottom.

There were no convenience fees (which I think are bogus anyways, why should I pay to save YOU money), and the refund (all $182 of it) will be deposited into our checking account.

The ONLY thing I would say they could do to improve it would be to make the form jump to the correct position when you ask it to do a calculation. Perhaps some AJAX technology would help in that respect.

The biggest impediment to me starting a workout program is the fact that, after my first workout, I am in a lot of pain.

Oh, the pain goes away after a few days … but it’s kind of hard to get into the habit of working out initially.

I had a good workout on Monday … and was going to workout again on Wednesday … but I was in such pain I had to skip.

I was going to workout again today … but I couldn’t find my padlock. Yeah, I know it sounds like an excuse … but I really couldn’t find it. I bought a new duffel bag and didn’t move my lock from the old bag to the new one. Darn annoying.

I am absolutely, positively, going to workout tomorrow … even if I have to buy a new lock.